Four weeks after pre-orders opened, the Mac mini with M6 and the Mac Studio with M5 Max or M5 Ultra reached Apple Stores on September 22, 2026, in 30 countries and regions including the US. Same-day pickup is already live at many locations, MacRumors reports, for the standard configurations only. You pay online at checkout, and the store may ask for a government-issued photo ID and the order number.
That limit hits the Mac Studio hardest, because Apple built the M5 Ultra's pitch around memory: up to 512GB of unified memory at 1.2TB/s, enough to run large language models on the machine itself. Any build with upgraded specs ships from Apple's online store instead of a store shelf. And the 512GB configuration isn't out at all yet.
The Mac mini barely notices. Its base M6 model, with a 12-core CPU, a 12-core GPU and 16GB of unified memory, is a standard build, so iPhoners after a first Mac can carry one out today. Apple claims up to 40 percent faster CPU performance than the M4 Mac mini, and TidBITS notes the M6 is Apple's first chip on a 2-nanometer process. It keeps the old footprint and ships with macOS 27.
The M6 model's three rear ports are Thunderbolt 4, and Thunderbolt 5 starts with the M5 Pro, worth knowing if a Thunderbolt 5 dock already sits on the desk. Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5Gb Ethernet come standard on both.
The standard M5 Ultra build ships with 96GB, under a fifth of the 512GB ceiling, so anyone buying one for the largest models is really waiting for late October.
